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Ben Tucker - RIP


Chuck Nessa

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goin' home baby ... r.i.p. Ben Tucker

I've loved this tune almost the day I discovered jazz ... my dad has a few Herbie Mann LPs, and I got this one as one of my first twent or so jazz discs and still enjoy it every once in a while -- though I did never really follow on Mann that much ... but I was always delighted to see Ben Tucker in the credits on the rare occasions he turns up.

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Damn.

Savannah is a strange and wonderful little city, and Ben Tucker made it more wonderful. He kept his jazz club, Hannah's (named after the vamp of Savannah, G.A. in the famous song) open for longer than I would have thought possible, although he changed locations a couple of times. He must have gotten sick of playing "Comin' Home Baby" at some point, but he would always answer requests for it graciously. I know - it was one of my first wife's favorite tunes, and I would always request it for her when we heard him play. RIP to a great bassist and a great man.

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Let me echo Jeff's tribute to Ben and his very real jazz club, Hannah's. The time I went in May, 1992, vibist Dave Pike had brought his rig and was sitting in. The band swung even harder and Ben (then 61) was digging his scene.

Since then, as I acquire West Coast jazz albums, I continue to find 'Ben Tucker, bass' in the credits. And the music is always solid underneath.

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Still trying to get my head around exactly how this accident happened...golf cart, drag racer, wtf?...cannot yet do so...

Apart from that, what a sad loss. This guy was there, if you know what I mean. Always hate to see them go.

yah, a terrible way to go for a great musician and someone who did so much for Savannah. Jeffcrom has been there more often than I, I'm sure but I know the area pretty well and am awed at the richness of its African-American history in particular. (Not that we can extricate that slavery, Jim Crow etc.) Anyway, though I've not seen a report that said where exactly Ben got hit, you can see roughly where he was on Hutchinson Island--

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=hutchinson+island+golf+course&fb=1&gl=us&hq=golf+course&hnear=0x88fb9ef2202d3e69:0xd07536075b429b39,Hutchinson+Island&sa=X&ei=KX-vUZ21KPGn4APXkYH4DA&ved=0CI4BELYD

There are places I go in Florida-- very small coastal towns on the Gulf-- where golf carts are transportation for people and though the streets are heavily marked to advise drivers of such, you can see how an accident could happen, likewise those developments with golf courses traversed and ringed by open roads. BEN TUCKER RIP

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